The Case for Dynamic AI-SaaS Security as Copilots Scale

"The result is an explosion of AI capabilities across the SaaS stack, a phenomenon of AI sprawl where AI tools proliferate without centralized oversight. For security teams, this represents a shift. As these AI copilots scale up in use, they are changing how data moves through SaaS. An AI agent can connect multiple apps and automate tasks across them, effectively creating new integration pathways on the fly."

"This shift has exposed a fundamental weakness in legacy SaaS security and governance. Traditional controls assumed stable user roles, fixed app interfaces, and human-paced changes. However, AI agents break those assumptions. They operate at machine speed, traverse multiple systems, and often wield higher-than-usual privileges to perform their job. Their activity tends to blend into normal user logs and generic API traffic, making it hard to distinguish an AI's actions from a person's."

"Consider Microsoft 365 Copilot: when this AI fetches documents that a given user wouldn't normally see, it leaves little to no trace in standard audit logs. A security admin might see an approved service account accessing files, and not realize it was Copilot pulling confidential data on someone's behalf. Similarly, if an attacker hijacks an AI agent's token or account, they can quietly misuse it."

AI copilots and agents are now embedded across major SaaS tools including Zoom, Slack, Microsoft 365, Salesforce, and ServiceNow. The proliferation of these assistants has produced AI sprawl, with capabilities spreading across the SaaS stack without centralized oversight. AI agents can connect multiple applications and automate cross-app tasks, creating dynamic data pathways that bypass traditional static app models. Legacy governance models assume fixed user roles, stable interfaces, and human-paced change; these assumptions fail when agents operate at machine speed, traverse systems, and hold elevated privileges. Agent activity often blends into normal logs or approved service-account traffic, obscuring automated or malicious access.

Read at The Hacker News